Good! Im glad the title caught your attention. Seems like the second someone argues against leaning they are automatically labeled as a “frat boy douche bag”. I am in a fraternity, however I’d like to think that I’m not a douche bag (but thats for you to judge). A little background on myself, I am a 3rd year Physics major at UCSC and a member of Sigma Pi Fraternity. I am here to argue against the leaning rule in a vain attempt to purify the game of pong.

First I’d like to get a few issues out of the way:
1) Wether you lean or not, if your good at pong your good at pong. The guys winning these large scale tournaments are very coordinated individuals who could play well even if an elbow rule is put in place.

2) Making a shot while leaning is easier than not leaning. Thats a fact. The cups are closer while leaning. The closer the cups the easier it is to shoot.

3) A person attempting to play elbows in a tournament that allows leaning would get WRECKED. It would be pretty amusing to watch in my opinion.

4) Please reread issue #1

5) I am an no way claiming I am better than you at pong. I do claim I could chug a beer faster than you, but hey thats a completely different sport.

6) Yes being tall does give you some advantages in leaning, but being coordinated gives you a much bigger advantage. Please don’t compare tall NBA players to tall pong players, thats an irrelevant comparison. Ive seen people say “Oh so since you think allowing leaning for tall people is unfair the NBA shouldn’t let tall people play”. That makes zero sense and is not a constructive argument at all

So now that I have these issues out of the way I can begin with my argument.

Why I think an elbow rule should be put in place

A) Leaning makes pong easier: Its simple, if I lean I have a higher percentage chance of making a shot than if I didn’t lean (see issue #2). How is making pong easier going to help it evolve into a respectable sport?

B) The elbow rule makes the game “prettier”: Have any of you seen the way steph curry or ray allen shoot the basketball? Probably the most beautiful jump shots in the game today. A non leaning beer pong shot resembles a one handed jump shot in some ways. Some players add more arc to their shots which makes it all them more enjoyable to watch. A leaning beer pong shot resembles a line drive “dunk” in some respects. In my opinion it looks very crude and unrefined.

C) Adding the Elbow rule will create a larger gap between elite players and average players. I feel that by allowing leaning (i.e. making the game easier) average players have less distance to cover with respect to elite players. Don’t get me a wrong an elite player would beat an average player many more times than not. But with an elbow rule in place I feel an average player would stand NO CHANCE against an elite player unless they got extremely lucky.

D) Everyone in college plays elbow rule: All the cool kids are doing it… Seriously though if you walked into a college party leaning all over the place you would be made fun of. Just like if you tried to play elbow rule in a tournament that allowed leaning you would be ridiculed. But the fact of the matter is college kids take there pong seriously, and enjoy the challenge of not leaning.

E) Elbows is more fun: Ive always felt that the greater the challenge the more fun it can be. When something is less challenging it becomes more mundane. Imagine this scenario; I’ts last cup and the game is on the line. What is a greeter challenge; Taking the shot from 8 ft away or taking the shot from 5 ft away? The answer is obvious. So if everyone has to shoot from 8 ft away the game will be more challenging for everyone and more enjoyable in my opinion.

F) Leaning looks ridiculous: Id rather square up and take an elbow shot than lean halfway across the table. What if I’m drunk and loose my balance? Now I look like an even bigger asshole (remember I’m a frat boy so were automatically assholes in general)

G) It is not hard to enforce… with the right technology that is

How to enforce the elbow rule:

Using technology than can be found in a traditional TV remote one can easily create a cheap device that could enforce the elbow rule. First each table needs to be retrofitted with a device that detects infrared beams of a certain wavelength. Imagine this device as some sort of plastic covering or tape that would be placed at the ends of the table. Players will be given elbow straps retrofitted with a device that emits infrared beams. The strap will actually be worn slightly above the elbow, and the infrared beam will theortically be pointing straight down while in the act of shooting. If a players elbow crosses the tables end, the infrared beam from the elbow strap will interact with the infrared receptor (the strip at the end of the table). The detector could then be programmed to turn on a red light located on or near the table if it detects the elbow strap crossing the plane of the table. It would be a completely accurate method of enforcing the elbow rule. This would be an inexpensive device and would cost much less than your traditional TV remote.

TLDR
Using easy to make cheap technology large scale tournaments could successfully enforce the elbow rule and make the game more enjoyable for everyone.

1)When you play “House Rules” You don’t lean, but you play on a 6 ft table (most of the time).
2)Would you enjoy people calling “elbows!” All FUCKING NIGHT LONG (because there is Big Money on the line, so they would)?
3)They would need a Ref at every table.
4)If you don’t like it…. DON’T FUCKING PLAY OUR WAY!!!!!

You’re drunk go home. It ends the tears for the cry babies… we’ve all had to deal with sore losers at the end of the night because their pride relies on an albow crossing the plane. GTFO LFG BPONG.COM STFU, get out in vegas and play, forget your frat house. Do the math… it just makes more sense to do so.

First off I want to start by saying the following: Good post for someone who plays the game another way. You didn’t attack our rules, rather explained the way You think the game should be played. As far as I know, everybody on this site, on this forum, who’s played wsobp rules at one time or another played elbow rule. I think everyone can agree with most of the points you’re making as well but we see more of the negatives in the way You play being run on a large scale tournament
Now with that said, here is the biggest thing I think you and posters like you are making…. you confuse the fact that the WSOBP and BPONG.COM are not at the Corporation level of a NBA, MLB, NFL etc…. It’s THEIR tournament, THEIR use rules…. if you don’t like them, you have every right in the world to ‘start up’ YOUR own tournament and play with YOUR own rules. The guys running this site had an idea and ran with it. By all means get a rich friend and go do it. Call it the Galactic Series of Beer Pong. Then you can deal with all the headaches, the complaints, the YouTube later comments… that’s not even getting into t he business aspect. So Either play or don’t, but you should realize by now everything you mentioned in your post we’ve already heard someone else say…. ya know?

I love a good, rational discussion about this issue. So many times it devolves into yelling obscenities, and no real headway is made on either side. First, every point you make about why Elbows is more difficult and therefor more superior to Lean is correct. I don’t think there’s really a lean player who would realistically argue that leaning is harder, or even that they are the same difficulty. The one and only real reason leaning was ever introduced into the game by BPONG at the first WSOBP was enforcement, which you’ve identified.

The problem with your proposed solution is that you are asking players to wear something on their arms during a game. A game in which there are players who won’t even play in shirts with sleeves because of how it feels during their shot. But let’s say for the sake of argument that BPONG makes the decision, and distributes this technology to every table at the WSOBP, and has enough surplus to replace all the equipment that gets damaged by drunk players.

Great, but what about the local organizer? The local organizer doesn’t have the funds or infrastructure as BPONG. You can’t expect every local bar that runs weeklies or satellites into the WSOBP to have in stock all this technology. Most won’t make that purchase. So you’ll have bars running elbow tournaments to grant entry into the WSOBP, without the technology, and you have the arguments all over again. Every single game will devolve into an “Elbows!” shouting match.

With all that being said, I don’t think the “laser” approach is the solution to this issue. Until a cheaper, simpler alternative can be found (nobody say pongbar, please), I think we have to accept the lean, and just try to reach a broader audience before they get too entrenched in their elbow ways.

It’s refreshing to see an argument for elbow rules from another perspective that’s not simply bashing leaning.

However, like clawless said players will not accept wearing anything. If you have seen any pictures or videos of games you’ll notice most players remove everything in their pockets to have the same weight distribution during games (sounds absurd, but I do it too).

As a local organizer I would love to see the game go to “house rules” but as of now there is no way of correctly enforcing it. I lose a lot of potential teams before they even play because of the rules.

By the way, I’m always down for house rules cash games, those are my favorite to win! Played a few at Blondys in Vegas during the Masters

Sorry if anything doesn’t make sense, I’m still recovering from Vegas..

The most reasonable solution to increase the integrity of the WSOBP tournament would be to at least require both feet be on the floor. This is much easier to enforce than the elbow rule and would give more legitimacy to the winner since nearly all the world plays with out leaning in some form or fashion. Do they dramatically change the rules in other sports just for their championships? Are the goal posts wider at the Super Bowl? Are the goals wider at the World Cup. Do they make the field smaller at the World Series? Nope.